


The Caretaker Instinct

by annathecrow



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Banter, Bureaucracy, Canon Character of Color, Canon Compliant, F/M, Flying, Male Character of Color, POV Maria Hill, POV Sam Wilson, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Sam expresses his feelings by feeding people, hopefully, implausible explanations for international incidents, lots of junk food, snacks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-28
Updated: 2014-09-26
Packaged: 2018-02-15 05:03:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 5,288
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2216760
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/annathecrow/pseuds/annathecrow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The door creaks and Wilson comes into the room. Maria doesn’t bother to turn and ignores him, only to be surprised when he shoves a plastic coffee cup right under her nose. She looks up at him dubiously.<br/>“You look like you need it,” he answers with a small smirk.</p>
<p>---</p>
<p>The apple is wet with dew and uneven, with a red blush and a blurry imprint of a leaf on one side. She bites into it hungrily and enjoys the juice soothing her throat, still raw from the smoke of last night. She hands the apple to Sam and watches him as he takes a bite with closed eyes.<br/>“You do this a lot, you know that?” she chuckles.<br/>“Hmm?”<br/>“You feed me. Bring me snacks, pull me out of the office for lunch. You make me breakfast.”<br/>“In bed. Breakfast in bed,” he says smugly. <br/>She shoves him a little, but he just pulls her closer and keeps grinning at her. She grabs his hand holding the fruit and kisses him, slow and thorough. He tastes like the apple, sweet, a little imperfect, just right.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> There was this gif post, and the idea just wouldn't go away, and what I'm trying to say is - this is all tumblr's fault.  
> (EDIT: now with proper rating. That's what happens when post stuff at 2am.)

It takes Steve 46 hours to regain consciousness. It takes Maria 47 to come to the hospital, full of Triskellion victims and as heavily guarded as no other building in DC, inside and out. The official statement is there might still be Hydra around. The hard truth is that there are definitely Hydra around - some of them are laying in the hospital beds next to “true” SHIELD agents. And nobody can tell the difference.

When she enters the room, Sam Wilson looks up from the phone he’s been fiddling with. He gives her a challenging look, all smirk and raised eyebrows.

That was fast,” he quips. Maria resists rolling her eyes - these strays, seriously; always trying to get a raise out of her. She gives him an unimpressed look and turns to Steve. “I am sorry, I should let you rest, but we need to talk.”

Steve nods. Before he even says anything, Wilson is up from his seat.

“I’ll go stretch my legs,” he says. He turns to Maria and motions toward the vacated chair, “Here, sit down, strategize, I’ll be back,” and slinks out the door before Maria can get a word out.

She huffs and takes the chair. “Where do you people even keep finding these?” she asks Steve.

He gives her a confused look and she just shakes her head. “Sorry, nothing.” She takes a deep breath. “First of all, I need to know the whole story. Can you tell me what happened on the helicarrier?”

The talk isn’t easy in the slightest, and it feels to Maria as going on for hours. After they’re finished, Steve is resting with his eyes closed, and she is just staring out of the window, not really seeing anything. She desperately wishes she could cut these people a break, at least for a while.

The door creaks and Wilson comes into the room. Maria doesn’t bother to turn and ignores him, only to be surprised when he shoves a plastic coffee cup right under her nose. She looks up at him dubiously.

“You look like you need it,” he answers with a small smirk. When she keeps staring, the smile wilts a little. His eyes flicker to the coffee and back at her face. “Shit, you spies don’t drink unsealed drinks or something...?”

Maria snorts and grabs the cup. “You just got almost killed while fighting on our side, Wilson. I don’t think you want to poison me.” She takes a sip without taking her eyes off him. The coffee is crap, bitter, and it feels like heaven.

“So you don’t think I’m Hydra?” Wilson teases. She bites her lip to not give the charming bastard what he wants, and levels an unimpressed stare at him. His shit-eating grin just grows wider.

After a beat, she looks away. She takes another sip of the coffee and sighs.

“Steve?” she asks and touches the super-soldier lightly on the arm. He opens his eyes and blinks at her blearily. “I need to go.” She looks looks to Wilson and back, addressing them both. “I know you want to go after Barnes as soon as possible, but I need you here now, at least for a while. If we want to bury SHIELD for good, we need to do it properly - senate hearings, federal court, UN, NATO, the whole three ring circus. I will let you know the date when it’s set.”

Steve looks deeply unhappy. After a beat, it’s Wilson who answers. “We’ll be there,” he says with a serious nod. The “I will get him there” stays unsaid, but understood. Maria breathes out, relieved. Thanks for the strays, sometimes.


	2. Chapter 2

Sam pushes his way out of the hall where the preliminary UN meeting is held, ignoring the looks of the committee members. The hearing so far has been like pulling teeth. They have been at it for five hours and he already explained five times that yes, he helped an agent of international secret organization steal US property; and, indeed, he then used it to attack said organization to stop it from executing a world-wide attack at over a million of foreign nationals; and _yes_ , he _does_ think that the goals justified the means in this case. Slightly.

The committee was torn between flatly blaming everything on the US government, nazi spies and all, or endlessly squabbling over what should have been done back in the fifties instead of founding SHIELD in the first place. _Because that’s oh so very constructive._

Sam shakes his head and tries to stretch his cramped muscles. His stomach growls and he curses the fact that the break is only for fifteen minutes. Not nearly enough to go get some real food. Instead, he finds a vending machine and buys a bunch of overpriced snacks - it will be hell on his arteries, but _no way_ he’s going to survive the rest of the day on empty stomach. Besides, he doesn’t plan to make a career of this. _Lets hope tagging behind the great American hero doesn’t land you in shit like this too often, Sammy-boy._ He shudders just at the thought.

As he tears into a piece of vacuum-sealed pastry, Sam looks around for a place to park himself as he eats. Then, from a corner of his eye, he notices a familiar figure. Maria Hill is sitting on a bench in one of the side corridors. The occasional passers-by watch her cautiously, but give her wide berth.

She certainly cuts an impressive figure, in her sensible dark blue skirt and blazer, white blouse and hair coiled in a bun. Natasha always looks like a cat, deceptively soft, but always ready to pounce. Maria... Maria is a sword, all hard steel and sharp edges.

She rubs at her neck, obviously trying to massage out a crick, and Sam winces in sympathy. Also, a little bit of guilt. He’s here just a couple of hours, Maria has been doing this song-and-dance routine for days.

_Stop standing here like a twit and staring_. Before he can think better of it, he walks up to her.

“Hey,” he says, trying for casual.

Maria murmurs something and looks up at him, face unreadable. Sam debates with himself a moment, then he rummages in his pockets and offers her a chocolate bar.

“You look like shit,” he tells her. _Always the smooth talker, Sam._

“Gee, thanks,” Maria replies sarcastically. She looks at the chocolate, than back at him, eyebrow raised.

“What? Don’t tell me, you’re one of those people who don’t eat chocolate,” Sam says in mock disgust. He wiggles the chocolate in front of her.

Maria snorts and snatches the candy bar. “Shut up,” she tells him without much heat. She bites off a big chunk of it and makes a positively obscene moan, chewing slowly with eyes half closed. She slides down on the bench to stretch her arms and legs and loosen her cramped muscles.

Sam swallows and looks away quickly. _Down, boy_ , he tells himself desperately. _Abort, abort, unexpected development, mission critical. Oh, this was a bad idea._

“Well, apparently not,” tries to cover with a joke and fuck, does his voice really sound that raspy?

When he finally looks back at Maria, he catches her watching him through her lashes with an expression between amusement and wonder. It’s just a moment though, the next second she covers it with with a small smile. It isn’t the SHIELD-issue “fuck off” smile but it’s just as unreadable. Sam suddenly realizes that standing next to her like that, he must be towering over her. It would be a position of intimidation, but Maria just doesn’t seem uncomfortable at all. She would be able to threaten him even looking up at him like that, Sam thinks.

Before he can figure out how that piece of information makes him feel, something starts beeping loudly. Maria sighs and pulls out a phone. She jabs at it viciously to turn it off. She smiles up at him, looking almost disappointed. “Time’s up. The hearing starts in two minutes.” She stands up and straightens her clothes. “Back into the lion den,” she quips.

They walk back to the door in silence. When Sam opens the door for her, Maria shoots him an unimpressed look, but passes through. The way she changes as she crosses the threshold is almost magical - she pulls herself straight, smooths away her expression, and loosens her walk just so... she enters and the eyes of the room are immediately on her. Sam really doesn’t blame them.

He huffs in exasperation at his own thoughts. _Wilson, man, you might have a problem._

 


	3. Chapter 3

Maria really isn’t having a day.

The board of directors is almost as nosy as the World Security Council, and where she could get by with a bit of liberally applied “we are a shady government agency” at SHIELD, Stark Industries is making her jump through the hoops like a trained puppy.

Privatizing world security, it turns out, is a roll of goddamned red tape.

Earlier that day, Pepper Potts herself appeared in her office, with that ubiquitous tablet and a mild smile that set Maria’s teeth on edge.

“How far are you on that report, Maria?” she asked.

Maria called on all her spy training to keep her face pleasant. “Working on it. I can’t do much more until I get the statements from Rogers and Wilson. They are coming today at two,” she added, before Potts could say anything.

The CEO smiled at Maria pleasantly. “Good! The board is getting restless. I don’t know how much longer would they let me get away with all this smoke screening.” She tapped her tablet. “Anything else you need?”

“No, all the other projects are going as planned,” Maria answered.

“Alright, not going to take you away from your work,” Potts said and left again without further ado.

Maria knows it’s mostly bullshit. Potts is brilliant; if she wanted, she could pull the board around by their noses for months. But she also isn’t inclined to cut Maria any slack. It would be annoying to catch the blame for the entirety of SHIELD, but Maria has been doing that for months, anyway. Besides, she and Potts are too alike to really hate each other. Well, mostly alike. The woman genuinely likes Stark. Maria shakes her head. Potts’ brain must operate on different wave lengths. Even so, Maria has a horrified suspicion she might actually become friends with Potts, sooner or later. She really doesn’t know how to feel about that.

Maria checks the time and grimaces. The late afternoon sun is already glaring into her office, and the dynamic duo is still a no-show. “Really, any time now,” she mutters.

As if summoned, a lone figure appears behind the glass wall. Before he even knocks, Maria reaches for the remote, opens the sliding door, and lets him in.

Sam steps into the room and slowly turns around. “Fancy!” he whistles. “I feel kinda under dressed.”

Maria gives him a slow once-over. He is. Jeans with ratty cuffs, scuffed hiking boots, and an undersized Superman t-shirt with... is that Burmese?

“Can’t you people pick clothes that aren’t two sizes too small?” she despairs aloud.

“What?” Sam looks down at himself. “Are you telling me I’m... rippin’?” he finishes cheekily.

Maria facepalms. “Wilson. No. That was terrible. Are you taking flirting tips from Clint? Don’t.” She exaggerates looking around. “Didn’t you lose something? Big, vintage, enjoys American motifs?”

“Uh. He’s restocking?” Sam squirms under Maria’s glare. “We have a new lead after Beirut. We’re in New York just to touch base and we’re off again.” He throws his hands up. “Look, I tried. I talked him into staying at Stark’s for a night, so we can have a few hours of sleep somewhere clean and safe for a change. That’s all I could do.” He picks at his t-shirt. “Didn’t even have time to pick up clothes from my place yet.”

Maria sighs. “Well, tough to be you, then. You’ll be doing all of the paperwork.” She picks up a pile of folders from a corner of her large desk and drops in down between them. Sam stares at it incredulously. “You’re kidding.”

“I wish. Welcome to corporate employment. Finances are dying to know why they should pay for all the damage you caused in the last few months. And Legal is wondering why do they have to smooth feathers of twelve different international jurisdictions.” She leafs through the papers. “Rome. Hamburg. Vladivostok. Harbin.” She chuckles. “I really want to hear how you explain Harbin.”

“I’m... really not much of a writer,” Sam winces.

“It might have gone better if we didn’t learn about your shenanigans from the evening news,” Maria tells him dryly.

Sam pulls a face of affronted innocence. “What? I’ve been writing!” He grins. “Did you get the postcard?”

Maria rolls her eyes. “Yes, I did get the postcard, Sam. Remind me to explain to you the concept of not disclosing of one’s location again.”

Sam shrugs, unrepentant. “We’ve been made already anyway. I just took the opportunity.”

Maria sighs, but can’t help the smile on her face. The postcard hangs on her fridge and it makes her chuckle every morning. But she’d be damned to tell him that. Better not to encourage the bad ideas. She turns back to the files. “Either way, I don’t think SI Legal will take a postcard with a cartoon mole in a rocketship as a valid document. JARVIS?” she calls out.

“Yes, Ms. Hill?”

“Are you allowed to help me with this one?” she asks the AI.

“As it is technically a matter of the Avengers Initiative, Master’s restrictions on your usage of my services doesn’t apply.”

Sam rises an eyebrow. “What’s that about?”

“Stark banned me from using JARVIS.” Maria smirks. “He’s worried I am going to tempt him away.”

“I have informed Master that that the SI Security department poses statistically lower threat to my well-being than him, despite consisting from 63 percent of persons certified in use of heavy weaponry,” JARVIS explains dryly.

“Oh, burn!” Sam whoops.

“Alright,” Maria tells JARVIS, “I will need you to transcribe our dictation and fill it into these forms.” She fiddles with a remote control on her desk and one of the glass walls turns into a large display. She turns to Sam and gestures at the spare chair. “Take a seat. This will take a while.” She picks up the firs file from the pile. “So, Mr. Wilson, why was it a good idea to demolish a pottery shop in East London?”

They start by properly dictating the explanations, but as the hours pass, they slip into banter and jokes. Sam has a way with words, something she has noticed throughout the weeks of text messages and the occasional phone call. She’s glad he took it on himself to keep her updated - one of Steve’s more annoying habits is cutting away from his support network when he feels it is slowing him down. Between the stress of her new job and the fact that most of her closest people are out of her control, the steady stream of inane quips, stream-of-consciousness musings, and bad puns, has been the highlight of her day.

“No, no, Sam! JARVIS, just delete all of that, we can’t use this.” Maria wheezes, waving her arm and wiping away tears of laughter. She puts the file down on the carpet between them. Sam migrated to the floor from the uncomfortable visitor chair somewhere around hour two, and Maria gave up and joined him a little while after.

“What do you want me to say?” Sam squeaks indignantly. “There is no way to make this sound better. We blew up a Captain America memorial! The wax figurines were extremely lifelike. There was a long moment when I thought I killed Captain America! It was traumatizing!” his mock-somber face breaks and he starts laughing again.

He composes himself and turns to Maria. “Alright, I give up. I don’t know how you, but I’m starving. What about we took a break? There must be at least one place that delivers to Stark Tower.”

“Ms. Potts has standing agreements with several catering services to deliver food at any hour,” JARVIS informs him.

“Thanks for disgustingly rich guys with broken sleep cycles,” Sam sighs happily. “So, what do you say?”

Maria shrugs. “I’m in. But you’re fetching it from the lobby.”

They end up ordering pizza, because according to Sam, they just never get it right overseas.

“So melodramatic,” Maria laughs at him. “Of course they do. You know, in Italy, for example.”

“Yeah, but can they make a Hawaiian like this?” Sam insists and shoves a slice under her nose. She takes a bite and offers him a piece of her Cheese and broccoli.

“You just have terrible tastes,” she tells him.

“Says the woman with the broccoli,” he shoots back.

Maria just rolls eyes and pokes his leg with a toe.

Sam grins at her and looks away, studying his food. “You know, when I was thinking about taking you out for a dinner, I didn’t really imagine it going like this,” he says. It’s meant to sound light, but Maria can hear the tension in his voice. Her breath catches a little. She wasn’t expecting this, but she really should have. She got used to ignore this - attraction happens, but most of the time in her line of work, it’s best to just take it as an adult and get over yourself.

Office drama is one thing, getting killed because someone’s hormones run high is another. SHIELD had no proper fraternization policy, but there were unwritten rules. But, this isn’t SHIELD anymore. And Sam isn’t just another Agent who likes what they see. He doesn’t know the rules... there are no rules anymore.

Whatever shows on her face, it can’t be too reassuring, because Sam’s smile wilts. He looks straight at her. “I guess this isn’t the right time, but I’m a big believer in using your words. I need to know where I stand. So, hypothetically, if I were to ask you out on a date, what would the answer be?”

Maria looks away and tries to put her thoughts to words. It’s harder than she’d like. “Sam. I... these last moths? All I’ve been doing was picking up pieces. Of SHIELD, of its plans, of its skeletons in the closet. Of its people. And... look, what I didn’t have time for was my own pieces. Not yet.” Maria bites her lip when she sees the disappointment on Sam’s face. She reaches out and touches his hand lightly. “It’s not a no,” she tells him firmly. “Just give me some time?” she asks.

“I can do that.” He smiles.

She smiles back, thankfully. “I’ll give you an answer when you call from yet another anonymous photogenic village you get stranded in,” she tells him.

“Do you want another postcard?” Sam teases.


	4. Chapter 4

Say what you want about Stark’s ego, the view from the roof of the former Stark Tower is _awesome._

“Asian guy with the blue tie, going north, just passed the bakery,” Clint says.

“Black leather suitcase?” Sam asks and squints. The visor he’s wearing registers the muscle movements and obediently zooms in on the man.

“Yeah.”

“I say... steals office supplies.”

“Nah,” Clint drawls, “He looks like a fast driver to me. See how he twitches?”

“Eeeh, maybe. What about... the white woman with the galaxy pants?”

They sit on the on the ledge, legs dangling over the thousand-feet drop. Sam is wearing his wings; as for Clint... well. _Oh woe, a member of this damn team I’ll have to save from becoming a stain on the pavement one of these days. What’s new?_

Officially, they’re testing the visor - one of Stark’s newest ideas - on a set of very specific sheets covered with numbered dots.

Unofficially, they spent a nice hour building elaborate paper planes from the test sheets and then settled down to spend the rest of their afternoon people-watching. Sam is avoiding Tony and Steve, arguing over facial recognition software and an infuriatingly irregular map of Bucky sightings. Clint is avoiding boredom and everyone who wants to give him work that doesn’t involve shooting things. _And boats. Don’t forget the boats._

“Blond chick? Steals music off the internet,” Clint guesses.

“Booo, that’s lazy. I think... she illegally imports exotic fruit and sells it to her classmates.”

“What? That’s not even a thing,” Clint snorts.

“That _so_ is a thing!” Sam starts to defend himself, but Clint interrupts him. “Ah-aaaah, I see something you’re gonna like,” he sing-songs.

Sam forgets the visor and turns to look at him. The extreme zoom treats him to a detailed landscape of Clint’s pores, and _Ew, not a thing I wanted to see today._ He hastily zooms the visor out and soon sees Clint giving him a shit-eating grin.

“Yeah? And what would that be?” Sam asks cautiously.

“Going towards the Tower, left side of the road, about half a mile away,” Clint tells him.

Because there’s just one thing that could make Clint bring out the jerk voice, Sam spots Maria almost immediately. She’s carrying a plastic bag in one hand and a cup of coffee in the other.

“Soooo...” Clint drawls, and Sam _really_ regrets the one time he slipped up when talking about Maria in front of him. For someone with such an abysmal track record in romantic relationships, Clint just has a nose for these things. _Yeah, then again, the ‘thing’ is a crush the size of Manhattan. Not that hard to miss. At least Nat just makes that smug face. And Steve either hadin’t noticed yet, or he’s really good at pretending. Captain America has a poker face, who knew._

“I am not discussing my still uncertain love life with you, Hawkeye,” Sam tries to shut Clint down before he starts anything.

“Aw, why not? I can give you advice, I have experience!” Clint squawks indignantly.

“Because your experience is precisely the kind I’d like to avoid.”

“That’s just mean,” Clint pouts. He takes a breath to say something, probably horrible and potentially mentally scarring, but closes his mouth again with an audible click.

“Hey, Sam,” he says instead, voice suddenly sharp. “The guy in the gray sweater, about a block away. What does he have on his left arm?”

Sam zooms in on him. “Must be some kind of an implant. It looks like...”

“Like a centipede?” Clint finishes grimly.

“Yeah.”

“Fuck.” Clint climbs up from the ledge and fishes out his phone. Sam watches the gray sweater weave through the crowd towards the Tower. His eyes are fixed on something before him. Sam follows his line of sight and curses when he realizes it’s Maria on the other end. _Oh, no you don’t, you bastard._

Clint’s talking quickly at someone over the phone. “We have a Centipede super-soldier heading towards the Tower, and he doesn’t look like he’s just admiring the sights. Can you find out what the hell is he doing here?”

“He’s following Maria,” Sam tells him. He quickly finds his own phone and dials Maria’s number, then anxiously counts the beeps until he sees her pick up the phone.

“Hey,” she answers, voice tense.

“You’ve got a tail,” he tells her without any preamble.

“Yeah, I know,” Maria replies. “Black suit, pink shirt, faux-hawk.”

_Well, shit._ “Then you have two. Grey sweater, on your five, twenty feet behind the pink shirt, getting closer.”

Sam looks around and examines the crowd carefully. His stomach drops when he notices another pursuer, a petite woman in a blue long-sleeved dress, just ahead of Maria.

“Stark, we need you in a suit, now!” Clint barks into his phone.

“Don’t bother, I’ve got this,” Sam grits through his teeth. He waves over his shoulder at Clint, double-checks his flight harness and pitches himself off the edge of the building.

Clint is yelling something after him, but Sam doesn’t hear him against the whistling of the wind. He spreads his wings and lets his fall turn into gliding. His eyes never leave Maria and the attackers.

By now, the Centipede soldiers have given up all pretense of stealth. They advance on Maria like a pack of wolves. She speeds up, but the crowd doesn’t let her through fast enough. The pink shirt reaches her and grabs her arm. Instead of resisting, Maria drops her bag and goes with the pull. In a smooth motion, she uncaps her paper cup and throws it into the face of the attacker. The coffee sears his eyes and he instinctively loosens his grip. Maria pulls something from her pocket and jabs it into his abdomen. He goes down, twitching.

Unfortunately, that still leaves two super-soldiers, and no more element of surprise on her side. Sam looks ahead and notices a black car just a few feet ahead, waiting on the curb with one back door open. _Not trying to kill her, then._ Somehow, it isn’t very comforting.

Sam folds his wings closer to his body and kicks up the power to the propulsion engine. _Come on..._

The soldier in the blue sun dress considers Maria for a second, then tries to tackle her to the ground. Maria swerves to the side but not far enough. The woman hits her shoulder and takes Maria down. The gray sweater pulls Maria up by the arm, and pushes her towards the open car door.

Sam slams into him legs first and sends him sliding along the sidewalk. The attacker trips Maria as he falls, but lets go when his head hits the pavement.

Sam helps Maria up. “You alright?” He asks and checks her over for visible injuries.

“Yeah, I--” her answer is interrupted by a bulled whizzing around his head from inside of the car. On his other side, the female super-soldier is reaching for her own sidearm.

Sam folds his wings around them and they immediately start pinging with bullet hits. _Looks like a plan B._

“Hold on!” Sam tells Maria and pulls her close. She understands what he’s planning and holds onto him, arms around his neck and hands gripping the harness.

He swings his arms to gun the wings’ engines and then, they’re flying.

He raises quickly to get them from the firing range of the attackers. He feels Maria sliding lower, pulled down by the acceleration, and he tangles his legs with hers to anchor her. _Nuh-huh, no falling. Don’t you dare let go._ The image of her, falling down to her death, is disgustingly vivid.

The air ripples and he pitches away on pure instinct. A crackling blue beam misses them by inches.

“What the hell???” Sam yells at nobody in particular.

“Who cares, just get us out of here!” Maria shouts over the roar of air and the jets. “We’ll track them down later!”

Sam finishes the turn and aims toward the Tower. Another beam cuts through the air and Sam does a hasty roll and then another right away with a few swoops where he can fit them in. Maria whoops, exited instead of scared by the maneuvers. The beams keep coming, but luckily, the shooter doesn’t know how to hit a flying target. Inbetween the turns Sam sees the pedestrians milling in the street, panicking. _Sorry, fellow citizens, I’ve got priorities._

Finally, they land back on the roof of the Tower.

Maria looks at Sam with a wide smile, eyes bright. “That, was awesome,” she laughs breathlessly.

“Yeah?” Sam grins. “Fancied the flying?”

“Should have known there’s a reason you like it so much,” she smiles and _oh, I’d do daring rescues every day, just to see that look._

Somehow, it makes him more light-headed than a stall turn. Or maybe it’s the fact that she’s still standing so close to him, her hands on his shoulders and their bodies almost touching. He dares himself and brushes a few strands of hair from her face.

Maria takes a breath, as if to steady herself, and pulls him into a kiss.

When he started flying, Sam found that there is only a handful of things in the world he likes better. _This? Definitely one of them._

When they finally part, they just look at each other for a moment. Then Maria chuckles quietly.

“Dammit, I didn’t even taste my lunch,” she complains.

Sam smiles widely and takes the hint. “What do you say on going for a lunch with me? I know a place with a roof access and an owner who doesn’t mind people dropping from above.”

“Well, what are we still doing here?” she asks cheekily.

 


	5. Chapter 5

The sunrise finds them in an overgrown orchard somewhere in Ukraine. The September sun dyes the sky with reds and purples and slowly dissolves the thin fog. They wade through the dewy grass, getting their pants soaked up to their thighs. They’re not in immediate danger, but they have seventeen miles of night hiking behind them and another six until they make the pick up point.

“When I said I miss the fieldwork, this isn’t what I was talking about,” Maria grouses.

Sam snorts and takes her hand. She has a brief moment of internal conflict, thoughts of responsibility and rules and public displays of affection on the job flashing through her mind. Then she reminds herself that those things don’t matter anymore. This isn’t SHIELD, and she can damn well do this whenever she wants. She turns to smile at Sam and tangles her fingers in his, swinging their connected arms as they walk under the apple trees.

Sam stops suddenly and yanks her to stop with him. She looks around quickly but he just smiles at her and pulls her closer. He reaches above them, pulls down an apple, and offers it to her with a flourish. “Breakfast is the most important meal of the day,” he tells her with a grin.

The apple is wet with dew and uneven, with a red blush and a blurry imprint of a leaf on one side. She bites into it hungrily and enjoys the juice soothing her throat, still raw from the smoke of last night. She hands the apple to Sam and watches him as he takes a bite with closed eyes.

“You do this a lot, you know that?” she chuckles.

“Hmm?”

“You feed me. Bring me snacks, pull me out of the office for lunch. You make me breakfast.”

“In bed. Breakfast in bed,” he says smugly.

She shoves him a little, but he just pulls her closer and keeps grinning at her. She grabs his hand holding the fruit and kisses him, slow and thorough. He tastes like the apple, sweet, a little imperfect, just right.

When they separate, he’s looking at her with a soft smile.

“I’m so gone on you, you know that?” he laughs at himself, sounding a little breathless, a little disbelieving.

“That’s good,” she replies and doesn’t bother to suppress the hopelessly smitten smile taking over her face. “Because I am, too.”

She thunks her forehead against this and forces herself to make a step back. “We need to make it the last few miles to the meeting point. Stark will get worried and I don’t want to deal with his attempts at Feelings.”

Sam laughs. “Please, no, he always makes it my fault. I need him to patch up the wings after this clusterfuck.”

They start walking again, still hand in hand and passing the apple back and forth. Sam starts to recount one of his favorite Stark related escapades, and Maria just smiles and smiles. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, this is it - I hope somebody out there liked this fic. I enjoyed writing it, at least. :B

**Author's Note:**

> I have all the parts of this either drafted or already edited, so I think I can safely promise that it will get completed. Sooner or later - some need more editing than other. The "chapters" are really short, so I could probably post it all as one longish fic... but I never get to actually write multichapter stuff. So, indulge me. :)


End file.
